


Don't Ever Let Me Be A Nuisance

by ladymelodrama



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: AU, And angst, F/M, a man rediscovering his soul, a woman rediscovering her will to live, hushed up scandals, lots and lots of angst, secret history, soapy melodrama, the important things, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymelodrama/pseuds/ladymelodrama
Summary: A very AU version of S2E8. Very melodramatic, very soapy. Lavinia/Richard.Cover art added to Chapter 1 - courtesy of the amazing and talented @chryssadirewolf <3





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenLovett86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenLovett86/gifts).

> So anyway, I was reminded recently that I meant to write a story for Lavinia/Richard a long, long time ago (like when Season 2 of Downton Abbey first came out) and then completely forgot. 
> 
> I honestly can’t remember my original plan for the pairing but apparently I’m in the mood for some serious melodrama. And soapiness. Which seems appropriate for Downton Abbey <3
> 
> This will be 6ish chapters (short ones) and like I said, lots of soap, scandal and melodrama. #NoApologies 
> 
> And *blows kiss* to queenlovett. This one’s for you (as the only other known member of the Lavinia/Richard rarepair fan-club haha)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cover art added - courtesy of the amazing and talented @chryssadirewolf <3

Mary’s telegram had mentioned that Lavinia Swire was ill.

She said it plainly, unadorned: 

_Miss Swire has been taken ill with the Spanish influenza._

And upon reading those words, Sir Richard had cancelled his last appointments of the day and hired a driver to take him up to Downton. He didn’t think twice and was on his way within the very hour of reading that message.

If he had stopped to think, if he had made an inquiry into the state of his own mind at that moment…

Or was it his mind that made the decision after all? 

Mary thought not. Mary guessed that jealousy and spite had brought him to the house, conjured in his cruel, scheming heart, and she said as much, as blunt as always, when she confronted him in the drawing room.

The dawning clarity written on her face spoke of many things, none of them generous. None of them to be hoped for in a woman he was soon (that was still the plan, wasn’t it?) to call his wife.

“You’re here because if the worst should happen, you think Matthew will collapse in grief in my arms, don’t you?” she laid the charge at his feet, shaking her head sharply and moving her eyes towards the ceiling, weary of him after a mere five minutes in his presence.

His jaw moved at her accusing words. The thought had crossed his mind, of course. He was nothing if not observant about human behavior. It was written into his bloody job description. And, given the lines Mary and Matthew had begun crossing, that was likely the exact scenario that would play out should Lavinia…

Should she…

He couldn’t bring himself to think the word, much less speak it aloud. And he failed to respond to Mary’s accusations, other than to say, understatedly, “It’s a tricky disease.”

For the real reason that he had dropped everything and come to Downton upon hearing of Lavinia’s illness was…tricky, in itself.

Richard Carlisle was a master of secrets, keeping them with discretion, hoarding them with a talent befitting a man in his position and releasing them only when the moment was right, if it was right. But his own secrets—oh, those would never see the light of day. 

And those that he shared with Lavinia Swire were buried deeper than all the rest.

In a biting tone, Mary had told him of her conversation with Lavinia. About Reggie Swire’s debts and the papers that Lavinia delivered to him, the regrettable but profitable Marconi scandal that followed. 

He was not surprised that Lavinia shared those details with Mary. And he was not surprised that she failed to divulge the rest.

_We will never speak of this again._ Lavinia had pressed those cold, cold words into her letter with bloodshot eyes.

No, Mary didn’t know all. Only Lavinia, an ordinary girl who so wanted her ordinary life, clinging to it with an iron grip, knew all of it. And she might take that knowledge to the…

No, he still couldn’t say it.

So he turned his attention back to Mary. Always Mary, with her long-suffering sighs and her eye rolls, her nearly emotionless practical streak that mirrored the coolness in him. A coolness that he had crafted over years and years of denying himself a heart in the pursuit of something tangible. Wealth, position…distraction.

_I am a self-made man and I’m not afraid to admit it._

They would have made a good team. He hadn’t been lying when he told Mary that. But Richard knew what Mary and Matthew had done. The more pliable servants at Downton were loose-tongued when a coin crossed their palm and one of the maids had told him the whispers on the stairs only a few minutes after arriving. 

Whispers that said Mary and Matthew had shared a dance and a kiss only the night before.

And that Lavinia had seen it happen.

“She’s not seriously ill,” Richard found himself saying to Mary, confidently. As if it must be. 

Although, how would he know? Still, he deluded himself with the words, focusing on Mary. Focusing on the game that he had committed himself to the day he met the young heiress at her aunt’s house.

The same day he heard that Lavinia had taken up with a country lawyer who, because of the most unlikely of circumstances, would someday be the 6th Earl of Grantham and heir of Downton Abbey.

Richard knew how this quartet would end from his very first visit here. He wasn’t a stupid man and Mary and Matthew were not clever in hiding their feelings. 

Lavinia saw it too. She must have, she wasn’t blind. She wasn’t a fool.

If she’d just listened that day in the garden…if they hadn’t quarreled, if she hadn’t seethed with rage. Again.

_How dare you…_

But too much had happened, before and after that day, and the ice in his veins grew colder with each successive hour. Hadn’t Lavinia said the same all those years ago? 

_What price did you get for your heart, Richard? Can you tell me that?_

_Not enough_, he thought. This was the first time in a long time he’d been able to admit it. But he had trained himself to be aloof to all regrets and buried them before they could rise up in his mind, clamoring for attention. 

Mary saw none of the regrets, only the games. And she was shaking her head in her cool manner, at her wit’s end with whatever doomed pseudo-romance they’d set upon, now seeing through his games too easily. And hers. She grew tired of him. He grew tired of her. He truly did. 

Why had he come to Downton, when he knew she would be like this?

Why had he come to Downton at all?

_You know why_…came a voice in his head. The stark words of Mary’s telegram, so innocuous, so seemingly mundane, echoed through his mind again. And a sudden set of raw feelings that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

_Fear. Loss. And regret, Lavinia. There’s much to regret._

But Sir Richard Carlisle, so set on his path for so long, wasn’t ready to hear it. So instead, he focused on wounded pride as Mary strode from the room in a dismissive manner.

It nearly worked.


	2. II

Lavinia had told Matthew that she needed to rest but after he left the bedchamber, she remained sitting up against those white pillows for some time. The fingers of her pale hands continued to fidget in her lap, running over each other restlessly. Her hands were clammy, then cold, then clammy again. 

The silence in the room was deafening. She almost rang the bell for one of the servants, just to have someone near. Someone she could talk to. Anyone.

For when she was alone with her thoughts, there was always the chance that she would think…that she would remember…

The last time she’d been confined to her bed like this was five years ago. Had it been five years already?

She hadn’t been to visit her cousin since, not once. And she wouldn’t. No, she’d never go back to her cousin’s house again. She couldn’t. 

_I have some self-worth._

That claim sounded so hollow, so weak. Perhaps she’d convinced Matthew with those words, but not herself. She was not that brave. She was not that strong. She closed her eyes briefly on the thought, as it filled her with dread, sinking into the pit of her stomach and staying there, like a coiled thing, her mouth going dry, her head buzzing with nonsense.

_Stop it. Stop it now, Lavinia._ It was a man’s voice in her head, but not Matthew’s.

_Matthew_, she clung to his name, bringing his face to mind, focusing on him. The man she loved. For wasn’t it his face that finally broke through all the terrible shadows that had been crowding out the rest for so long? Wasn’t it his small kindnesses—the little gestures, the gentle tone—that finally made her heart soft again? 

Her father approved of Matthew and said she’d chosen well, proudly, with his broad smile betraying his infallible faith in her choices, her decisions and her path in life. She could do no wrong in her father’s eyes.

Nor Matthew’s. Nor the rest of them. 

_But what if I told you all, Father? Would your smile fade away into nothingness? And Matthew, what if you knew my darkest secrets? Secrets that might make Mary’s look pale in comparison. Would you love me better or worse?_

For a long time, she thought he might love her just the same.

Wasn’t that why she loved him? For being kind, for being decent.

For having a _heart_. A heart that could beat in sync with hers. That could forgive and love and feel and break like an ordinary person. Rather than whatever it was that resided in his chest.

_What price did you get for your heart, Richard?_

She ignored the old question, having long given up any hope of an answer. And Richard was not who she wished to think of now.

Behind her eyelids, Matthew was smiling warmly, with that boyish charm that melted her heart and softened her eyes. Oh, but he wasn’t smiling at her. He wasn’t looking at her at all. The gramophone was playing a soft, brass melody and Matthew was dancing, and smiling, and bringing his soft lips to hers. No, not to hers.

To Mary. 

And the room was spinning, spinning, spinning like the repeating pattern on a Parisian rug and Lavinia felt light-headed enough that she could only manage a small, nearly breathless, “Hello?”

Mary’s dark eyes snapped so fast and she broke away from Matthew’s embrace immediately, her hand running over her lips briefly before coming down to rest at her side, her fingers twitching so slightly.

And there Lavinia was, on the stairs, wrapped in her shawl, with her simple, desperately soft, “Hello?” lingering in the air between all three of them.

Lavinia opened her eyes, as they were stinging with saltwater and she didn’t want to see anymore. She didn’t want to remember. And her head was spinning, her pulse quickening as she felt her cheeks flush with warmth at the memory. 

But she’d caught _them_ in the act. Not the other way around.

Why then did she feel so exposed? As if her heart had been laid bare in the front hall of Downton, with nothing to cover it up. When Matthew had come to her, his touch on her arm had felt so hollow. Ghostly, even. As if it didn’t belong there. As if it belonged to someone else. 

_His heart belongs to Mary. Don’t be a fool. Don’t do this to yourself._ His warnings in the Downton gardens all that time ago came back to her with a vengeance and she felt dread again. The dread of knowing he was right and that she’d played the fool. 

And why did this sickness have to magnify that feeling’s power so very much?

She sank down on the pillows, curling onto her side, as the tears started running down her face in streams and rivers. She couldn’t stop them and buried her head into the silk pillowcase to hide from herself. The fever in her head was running wild and she couldn’t manage a line of thought that made any sense.

The physical pain spread throughout her limbs and she ached all over. But her mind was against her most of all.

And she was dangerously close to unlocking all the cabinets in her head, unleashing the memories that would swarm her, drown her—the ones Matthew’s dear face had done so well to lock up and banish away since the day they met. 

_But Matthew doesn’t love you._

He couldn’t love her. Not while Mary Crawley drew breath on this earth. Oh, he’d pretend. He’d marry her, to keep his word. To be kind, to be decent.

But he didn’t love her. Not like he loved Mary. 

She couldn’t hold him to his promise. Not like that. Not when she knew the truth. 

_I have some self-worth…_

_Repeating a thing doesn’t make it true, Lavinia._

And without Matthew, how would she continue? She had opened her heart twice in her life. And twice it had been returned to her, bruised and broken.

This time, it felt torn, shredded beyond mending.

Lavinia groaned against the pillows, her hands grasping at the sheets weakly. She should call for someone, anyone, but the bell was suddenly too far away. And what was the point?

She was alone—bitterly, bitterly alone. As alone as she’d been at her cousin’s house, unwilling to see anyone for days on end. Her thoughts turned on her fully then and, under the fever’s treacherous ministrations, she succumbed to them too easily.

_I might as well be dead._ She thought grimly. _Dead as a soldier who falls in the trenches, dead as a child who never drew breath…_

And there it was. The damning thought that pulled at the rest like a loose, fraying thread.

Oh, and with one tug, it _all_ unraveled.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drama, drama, drama... :)

“I have a place for you here,” Richard snapped at Mary, nearly as a command, his eyes flickering to her once before turning back to his dinner.

She’d entered the dining room and headed straight to Matthew’s side of the table, obviously intent on the seat beside him. Mary’s steps moved with a confident manner, as if it was all settled. 

But Richard felt anything but settled. And he wouldn’t stand for her blatant disregard of convention—not without saying something. God, for a woman with such an intense desire to keep her scandals hushed up, she skirted so close to entangling herself in yet another. 

Sometimes he wondered if Mary didn’t relish this sort of thing, despite her protests, secretly hoping to be called out on her minor sins as some act of domestic rebellion or mere distraction. He suspected as much. And under different circumstances, he might have kept his tongue silent, as he had absolutely no interest in giving Mary anything she desired this evening.

But if Mary would make a play for Matthew, she should have decency to do it elsewhere. In private. At the appropriate time.

And certainly not while Lavinia was convalescing upstairs. She owed Lavinia that much, at least.

Mary hesitated at Richard’s curt words, but finally moved to take the seat beside him.

As she sank down into her chair, picking up her napkin and then the silver cutlery with a small sigh of displeasure, he bit back a few less charitable words that would not help matters. Besides, he was beginning to suspect it wasn’t Mary he was angry with.

It was himself. 

For thinking that any of this might have had a different ending. For thinking that Matthew would do the right thing. For thinking that Lavinia would be well taken care of, after all, and that his former sins against her (and there were many, he would never deny it) might be absolved by the love of another man.

A man so obviously in love with someone else. 

“How is Lavinia?” Isobel wondered from the end of the table.

“Alright, I think,” Matthew answered, with his usual, optimistic outlook. But then he added, almost woodenly, “The illness has made her rather confused.”

“How do you mean?” Mary wondered, too intently, and Richard watched Mary and Matthew share a glance, the pregnant pause stretching between them.

Oh, Mary knew _exactly_ what Matthew meant.

Richard imagined how Lavinia must have felt, coming down the front stairs and seeing them together. He imagined her change of expression, her wide eyes cast downwards and away, her breath hitching at the sudden knowledge of something that invariably changed everything.

He knew that look well enough. He caused it to grace her features once upon a time. 

_There’s much to regret, Lavinia…_

Richard clenched his fist beneath the table and again, questioned his motives for coming to Downton at all.

Dinner was a subdued affair as Lady Grantham’s illness had progressed to a crisis point and the family was on edge, all waiting for news. There was little small talk and the sound of silverware scraping ceramic was the only thing filling the tense silence.

Until Sybil entered the room in a rush, her expression as dark and anxious as the news she brought with her.

“Is it Mama?” asked Edith. Mary’s eyes turned a shade of fearful as well, her mother’s welfare enough to rock her out of her usual emotionless state. So perhaps she wasn’t all ice and stone. Richard had begun to wonder.

But Sybil was still speaking. 

“That’s what’s so…,” Sybil seemed to be biting back the words, afraid to say them. Her gaze flickered to Matthew, helplessly. “It’s Lavinia…”

_It’s Lavinia…_

_Lavinia Swire has been taken ill…_

There are moments in life when the light suddenly and irrevocably changes and whatever nonsense has been violently blinding a person sinks beneath a dark cloud or, in a rare burst of clarity, goes out completely. With the obscurity removed, the chilling truth is left behind.

The cold, bitter, _damning_ truth.

Richard Carlisle had always prided himself on blunt honesty. Blunt _truth_. He’d built his fortune on it—not to mention his titles, his position, his very reputation. Everything that mattered to him was founded on the honest truth, no matter how ugly or harsh or inconvenient.

And at Sybil’s words, one truth that had been hidden from him, or that he’d been hiding from for some time, suddenly became incandescently clear.

_Lavinia_, he thought, her face drifting across his mind too easily. Her red hair, her doe eyes. Her small, polite smile as she caught his eye across a room, pretending away the rest of it, begging him to pretend too. He had felt her eyes on him, watching him closely, the day he shook Matthew’s hand for the first time.

_Will you play nice, Richard?_

_Will you, Lavinia?_

The day he confronted her in the garden…that was the last of it. That was the end. She was rigid, pulling back from his touch like she’d been burned. Her anger cut him a little. Whatever she might think, he took no joy in causing her pain. 

That was _never_ his intention. 

Yet, he could see his very presence nettled her and so he left her alone, leaving her to Matthew’s steady care and affection. And distracting himself with Mary at the same time. It was an uneasy truce but it might have worked, it _should_ have worked—with the Crawleys healing the cracks and fissures that they’d never be able to heal themselves…

But then Matthew and Mary shared a dance. And Lavinia saw it.

_Lavinia is dying._

_Lavinia is dying because of Matthew Crawley and Mary and…because of me._

There was no denying his role in all of this. Truth, in all things. The past suddenly rushed over him, all that absolution he thought he’d achieved gone in an instant. Like vapor rising from boiling water.

There were times when he hated Lavinia almost as much as she hated him. She always insisted she was just an ordinary girl, _terribly_ ordinary, but by God, there wasn’t a more stubborn woman in the entire British Empire, he was convinced. And she was singularly infuriating in that stubbornness. 

He found it charming that first time she came to see him, to barter with him for her father’s debts.

_I’m Lavinia Swire, Mr. Carlisle. I’ve come to talk to you about my father._

_Your father sends his daughter to fight his battles?_

_My father doesn’t know I’m here. And he would forbid it if he knew._

There were other things that her father would forbid if he knew. And as time went on, the list grew longer. But that was part of the game, wasn’t it? 

He’d enjoyed that part of it, indeed.

And so had she, despite her stubborn, endless protests that she didn’t. That she was a good woman and that whatever nonsense she’d engaged in with him was a failing of her character that she wouldn’t be engaging in twice.

_It was a dozen times, Lavinia, but who’s counting?_ He had replied, thinking he was being clever. Her answer was silence and a tense frown, chasing away any chance for levity or forgiveness.

And whatever spark had been between them once was now drowned out in the deluge of hate and bitterness they both poured on it with vigor afterwards…

Or so he had thought. 

But there, in that dining room table at Downton, in the midst of his last ditch efforts to keep Mary on the path they’d all begrudgingly agreed, with their conventional futures set, all the old sins to be washed out by the passionless practicality of a good, solid marriage…

_Lavinia is dying._

_The mother of your dead child is dying…_

The grim thought hit him so hard that he felt like he’d taken a blow. Matthew might as well have taken a swing at him, which honestly, felt inevitable. This dinner had been the latest in a long line of tense meetings in this grand house. If Richard was thinking clearly, he might wonder how it hadn’t happened sooner.

At Sybil’s words, Mary’s gaze sought out Matthew, first and foremost, her dark eyes filled with pity, remorse, perhaps even guilt…but shared love too. 

And Matthew met her gaze much the same. This time, Richard didn’t scold Mary. He didn’t even notice. 

For the man was already out of his chair and bolting upstairs.


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's save Lavinia from being a cheap plot device for Matthew/Mary, shall we? <3

The darkness beckoned to Lavinia—she was tempted to let it swallow her whole, if only to be done with it all. Her body ached with pain, her head was split open by incessant voices.

Her eyes couldn’t focus, her eyelids were too heavy to stay open and she found herself drifting in and out of consciousness like waves climbing up a shore only to run back down again, all her jumbled thoughts too eager to rejoin the madness of a chaotic, stormy sea.

She was alone when the sea started churning. She hadn’t been able to ring the bell. It was too far away, lost in the fog…

But now there were pulsing shadows on the water. _No, not the water_—the bedsheets. There was no sea. The sea was in her head. She was ill. A touch of influenza, no more, the doctor had said yesterday. She wasn’t drowning. Why then was it suddenly so hard to breathe? 

She caught her breath, coming up for air. Her eyes darted open before shuttering closed again, seeking landscape but finding nothing solid. Only passing shadows, dressed in black and white, a flurry of half-images imprinted beneath her eyelids—black suit jackets, white gloves, silver jewelry and pearls, all bathed in flickering lamplight. 

There were others in the room with her. Someone was taking her wrist, then smoothing back the damp strands of her hair away from her brow.

But where was she? She reached out, straining against…what? 

She felt a great weight on her. The blankets. The blankets would crush her. But only if the ponderous words in her head didn’t do it first.

_Matthew doesn’t love you, Matthew doesn’t love you, Matthew doesn’t love you!_

_He was your one chance and that chance is no more. Because Matthew doesn’t love you._

_Matthew’s love for you is dead. _

_Dead, dead, dead…_

_Dead as Richard’s love before._

_Dead as the child you bore him. _

She heard herself cry out, her lilting voice twisted in physical pain, the cry more like a plea, as the fever continued to ravage her body. And she was helpless to fight it. She was too weak, too tired. 

Oh, but it wasn’t just the fever. 

She bit at her lip to keep from crying out all her sad history, confessing the sins that fell on her with their full weight, crushing her like those blankets, as she felt the threads of her earthly existence coming loose, unraveling on those sweat-soaked sheets.

“This is how you would take care of your future wife?” 

She recognized his voice first, piercing straight through the fog and shadows. She wondered if she imagined it. But no, Richard was here at Downton too, wasn’t he? To wedge himself between Mary and Matthew, thinking she wasn’t enough. Thinking she was too weak or passive or just…not strong enough to hold onto Matthew by herself. 

And he was right in that, of course he was. Richard was always right in the end, oh damn him. 

He could read a room in two minutes. It was nearly a parlor trick. Once, at a soiree in London, as he stood next to her under the marble arch of the ballroom, one hand around the stem of his cocktail glass, the other lingering at her forearm discreetly, he shared the key to his tricks—little ticks and twitches of the party-goers when they interacted with each, and how they wore their secrets in a stumbled word or a lingering glance, if only a person paid attention.

_But surely not, Richard. She’s a minister’s wife…_

_Surely yes, my dear._

He was clever, so clever. Too clever to feel empathy. Too clever to care about consequences. Oh, she hated how clever he was. And how sure of himself… 

The way he took her wrist in the Downton gardens was too familiar. And the way his fingers curled around her hand, retaining it even after she made as if to pull away, refusing to listen to any more of his cruel suspicions regarding Matthew and Mary. 

He poured those suspicions on her like poison and she recoiled from it. She wouldn’t listen to it. She was firm and strong-willed, as only he could bring out in her. She told him plainly—she would put her trust in Matthew Crawley and only him. She would put her trust in the man who had given her the chance to start anew. 

_Not the one who made a fresh start necessary._

“This is not our doing,” Matthew managed a response, his voice far away. His soft voice was breaking on the words, unsure in their pronouncements and heavy with regret. There was a measure of guilt in that voice but Lavinia didn’t believe he meant it. Not really.

Oh, she knew he would weep over her death. Matthew was no monster. But she knew whose arms he’d find comfort in when it was all over. 

_Matthew doesn’t love you. _

“We’ve done all we can,” Matthew continued. “The fever has taken on a mind of its own…”

“You’re a doctor!” Richard didn’t wait for Matthew to finish. He was angry and shouting at Dr. Clarkson. Not the cool-headed, immovable newspaperman now. He commanded, in his dread-worn rasp, “Heal her!”

“It’s beyond all of us now, Sir Richard,” Dr. Clarkson agreed with Matthew, at a loss, shaking his head. “The crisis is upon us. There’s nothing more we can do for her.”

“I don’t understand anyone in this house,” Richard was dangerously close to causing offense. Lavinia wondered if he’d lost his mind. Or would have, had she not been losing her own to a spinning fever that made everything—the voices in that room, the faces they belonged to—everything seemed like such nonsense. Like a dream. She couldn’t count to three. She barely remembered her own name.

_Lavinia Swire._ It came back to her in fits and starts, adding so cleverly, _Sir Richard’s secret mistress_…and she wondered if she should laugh or cry at the improbability. That _she_ was the one with the most secrets in that room. No, she couldn’t laugh. Not while Richard’s voice fell on her ears so sternly, so tortured and twisted up…with something.

_What is he doing?_

Richard continued, “You all go on about honor and duty and the proper way of doing things. Is this the proper way? You’ve put Lavinia on her deathbed, Matthew—”

“Sir Richard!” that was Mary’s voice that Lavinia heard through the fog, cutting it shrilly. Mary jumped to Matthew’s defense immediately. Of course, she did. “You are a guest here and I don’t see—”

“Mary, if you think your hands are clean in this, you are a fool,” Richard spat at her. “Not one of us can claim innocence in this mess.”

“Richard, I must ask you to stop,” Mary’s voice turned cold.

“Yes, I think you’ve outstayed your welcome, Sir,” her father, Lord Grantham, found his backbone, at last.

But Richard had no wish to stay at Downton anyway. Lavinia was surprised he was still here. The exchange with Mary was telling. They were done with each other. Had been, it appeared, for some time. Didn’t he need to be back in London, peddling his papers, collecting his bribes? Why was he here? Why was he in this…

Suddenly, she felt strong arms gathering her up from the bed. 

Familiar hands that she’d once felt running all over her body guided her arms around his neck, as he lifted her into his arms. Her weight was nothing to him. She grasped at the fabric on his vest weakly, barely comprehending what was happening. His scent made its way into the haze of her mind—tobacco, rosewood, the ink on his hands. 

_Richard, what are you doing?_

Perhaps the Crawleys were too shocked at his daring. Perhaps they knew there was more to this scene than they might first have expected.

In either case, not a soul tried to stop Sir Richard Carlisle as he carried Lavinia Swire down from her sickbed and to the car waiting below, in a mad dash to snatch her back from the persistent knocking of death at her doorstep.


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for chryssadirewolf and our Clue-inspired discussions—I went with Lavinia, in Richard’s office, with his tie _and_ her lace garters this time ;)

He would take Lavinia to Haxby. 

It was a rash decision, made by instinct more than anything else. The sight of her writhing on those bedsheets was more than he could bear. He couldn’t wait, he couldn’t stand idly by like the rest of them, stunned silent and motionless, watching her fade away in front of them. Helpless, hopeless…

Perhaps it would have been wiser to keep her at Downton, but that house was stealing her soul from her body and he wasn’t thinking clearly anyway.

He hadn’t been thinking clearly in a long time.

For how else could he explain how they ended up here? In the back of a car, headed to Haxby. Lavinia in her nightgown, clutching at his jacket feebly, mumbling nonsense, wholly unaware of where she was. Or likely who held her.

An hour ago, Richard had been fixated on Mary and keeping her to her faithless word, no matter how little she cared for him or he cared for her. Spite had kept him to the task, with Mary and Matthew’s shared glances at dinner just adding fuel to his already tempered flames of indignation. 

And Lavinia? An hour ago, they said she was recovering in the upstairs halls of Downton, on the mend and soon to rejoin them. But it wasn’t true. She’d been crying over Matthew’s hollow affection, and spiraling towards an abyss in the process. And no one noticed.

Not a damn person in that entire, grand house noticed.

“No one notices the little things,” Lavinia’s voice from years ago came back to him then. How he wished she would raise her head from his chest and speak those words now. Any words, he amended, noting the labored breaths and shallow gasps that fell on his ears with terrifying irregularity. 

But no. It was just memory.

A pleasant one—of a rainy, autumn night in London, years ago, when Lavinia came to see him at his office. It was after hours, everyone else had gone home long ago. She entered quietly, eyes alight with energy, saying those words almost…slyly? Sly was not her natural manner. Reserve and modesty—these were her born attributes. And yet… 

A series of late-night rendezvous had made Miss Swire far bolder than she had ever been before or than she would ever be again. She gave him a tell-tale grin as she leaned back against the dark wood of his office door, shutting it tightly and locking it with a simple turn of her fingers, just in case. She added, with a small, near sultry shake of her head, “Oh, the terribly ordinary things that give us away…”

She was quoting his own lines back to him, mocking him? Perhaps, but lightly, with a tease that she only used behind locked doors. And only with him. She knew his powers of observation were better than most. She knew he reveled in those powers, almost as much as he currently reveled in her company. 

She teased the possibility that they’d been found out. But that grin on her face said otherwise. And her presence in his office, at this hour, proved it false.

Still, he found her manner titillating and his body began to respond in kind. He met her gaze and held it, wondering where the more reserved Miss Swire had disappeared to tonight? Not that he was complaining.

Lavinia propped her umbrella against the door and peeled off her gloves quickly. She moved with grace, but fast. They only had an hour before her father would expect her back at the house. 

“Terribly ordinary things,” he mused, encouraging her to elaborate, “Like what?” 

He smirked at the wide grin she gave in response. Her pretty face was framed by wispy strands of her red hair, curled by the mist of rain falling in the streets. He drank in the sight of her, as his thoughts were overrun by her lately, despite his intention to keep this…distraction in check. Even before she arrived, he’d been having a hard time concentrating on the missive in front of him, wondering what she was doing, who she was speaking with.

But now she was here.

She laid her shawl over the back of the nearest chair before approaching him. He had been working late, still writing at his desk, despite the late chimes of the bell towers throughout the city. 

Lavinia bridged the distance between them in a few steps, her eyes never wavering from his. His smirk softened and he sat back in his office chair, enjoying his view, admiring her form, knowing that his hands would soon be running over her curves and taking out the pins in all that red hair. 

When she reached him, she slipped the pen from his fingers smoothly, setting it aside. He gave her no argument, as the work would have to wait. Instead, he reached out, teasing her wrist before pulling her onto his lap, her skirt bunching up to her thighs.

“Like the flush of my cheeks when I know I’ll be seeing you in an hour,” she answered his earlier question, her voice going a little husky. Her fingers immediately went for his tie, pulling the knot loose with a talent learned from repeated practice. By then, she’d had months of practice. 

As his hands began running up her skirt, fingering the lace of her garters, undoing the ties and slipping them down past her knee, she continued, “Like the stammer in my voice when I tell my father I’ll be taking a walk in the rain before bed.”

“He believed you?” Richard nearly laughed, too confident that no daughter of his would manage to trick him with such a flimsy excuse.

“Mmhmm,” Lavinia replied, her lips teasing at the side of his mouth before moving to the skin just below his ear lobe. Did he detect a slight shade of hesitation in her voice as she acknowledged, “My father trusts me.” 

“Perish the thought,” Richard teased, before capturing her wandering lips with his own. 

_Perish all my thoughts._ The memory disintegrated too easily, those nights spent with Lavinia far away and long ago. Buried in regret. Dead and forgotten, she said.

_We will never speak of this again._

In the back of that car, Lavinia struggled against him but then went very quiet. Too quiet.

“Hold on, Lavinia,” Richard whispered against her hair, hoping she could hear him. Her eyes were closed, her breath shallow. She lay against him, her arms still around his neck, but holding on with a weak grasp. 

She murmured something unintelligible against his collar. He wondered if she knew where she was. As he brushed her long, red hair back from her face, he noted that her skin was as warm as an inferno.

No flush this time, just fire. That wanted to consume her and burn her up, in a way that he wouldn’t allow. Despite having nearly burned her up himself, once upon a time.

He wouldn't give up without a fight. Not this time.

“Hurry, driver!” Richard urged the chauffeur, praying that he’d made the right decision.


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably 1-2 more chapters left on this (though I’ll leave it open-ended enough to return when the mood strikes). <3
> 
> Gorgeous photoset added to this chapter - courtesy of @chryssadirewolf <3 <3 <3

It was snowing. 

At least, she had the idea that it was snowing. Tiny, white flakes landed on her bare skin with a moment’s chill—too small, gone too soon, the icy lace melting against the heat of her cheek so quickly. 

But the flakes gathered swiftly, swirling around her with menace. And above was only darkness. A night without stars. A black void. A hole in the ground. She wondered…

What if it wasn’t snow at all? What if she was dead already and it was dirt being shoveled on her grave from above? Graves were just as cold, weren’t they? 

Buried alive. 

She would be buried alive, with no one to hear her screams. And with that tiny casket, too small for anything but a newborn, laid at her feet. _God, please no!_ She ran from the idea, fingers digging against the side of that hole—

She woke, fingers digging at his chest, her heartrate slowing only as she became aware of the strong arms that held her.

She was being carried again. By whom? Where were they going? And why?

_And who am I?_

Lavinia was struggling to recall anything. She had no conscious thought beyond that vague notion of snow. It was snow. It must be. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t in a hole in the ground. She settled in his arms again, her soft whimpers going quiet, her breathing evening out, and she listened. The crunch of hurried footsteps, the hush of a winter’s night. 

Oh, but the hush didn’t last. The fever wouldn’t let it last. She continued to drift in and out of horrible dreamscapes, cluttered with monsters and darkness and a dead child. 

_My child._

When she told Richard that she was pregnant, she expected him to sneer at her recklessness. She expected him to tell her that it was all her fault and why wasn’t she more careful and what did she expect him to do about it? 

He had arranged his life with such order and precision. Every financial decision was made years in advance. Every professional step he took was calculated to achieve the next rung on the ladder he climbed. Every document on his desk was laid parallel against the edge in straight lines. A man like that didn’t like surprises.

_I don’t like surprises either, Richard._

She expected him to rage or go sullen. Anything, really, but what happened…

“I’ll marry you, if you like,” he’d offered, in a cool and calm manner. Unaffected, as always.

And when she didn’t reply, when he finally lifted his eyes to hers, regarding her as if she were the current line item on his day’s agenda, he asked, in a voice devoid of any emotion whatsoever, “Well?”

That’s what nettled her. That’s what made her bristle and suddenly pull away, the change in her expression too transparent, too sudden. Her stomach had been in knots all morning, worried how he would react. She was ready for a fight, craved it even. If only to rid herself of the lingering, damning feeling that she had crossed a line that there was no coming back from. 

And he didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink.

He seemed to have no care for what they’d done or what they’d created. It was against every law of decent society, didn’t he understand? They had _sinned_ and would now have to live with the consequences of that sin. And Richard seemed completely undisturbed by any of it. The offer of marriage was made as an afterthought. 

A truly modern man. 

But she didn’t want a modern man. She would swear it in blood. She hadn’t been thinking, she had been caught up in…whatever this was. And it had swallowed her whole. The memories, still so fresh, of coming here to his office, to meet him secretly afterhours, brought a blush to her face that bloomed anew. And this time, it wasn’t in passion. It was shame. 

_Lavinia, what have you done?_ Her father’s voice was in her head.

She felt like she might be sick.

She didn’t recognize herself. The Lavinia who served tea to her father’s friends wore a demure smile and had a calm, respectable manner. That Lavinia had always imagined a quiet wedding to a man who would ask her father’s permission first. A man who would stumble over the words, unsure of himself, because he was pure and good and _decent_. 

But Richard wouldn’t ask her father, thinking him a fool. And even if he debased himself to do so, Richard wouldn’t stumble over any word. He would know what to say. He always knew what to say. Because he was worldly and blunt and…dangerous.

More dangerous because of the fiery feelings he drew from her breast, even then.

But that was over. It was forgotten. She’d buried those feelings deep. Buried them _alive_.

She’d told Matthew she was a little person who lived an ordinary life. Which was all true. Before and after. Saving those nights she spent with Richard and all that came because of it.

“I don’t want to be a nuisance,” she remembers saying to Richard, in a small voice. And she said it again, much later, to Matthew. The echo had resounded in her head terribly but she swallowed back all that it might mean. 

She _loved_ Matthew. Richard was…something else.

“What’s your plan then?” Richard had asked her, not pushing the marriage idea further. 

“I’ll go to my cousin’s house.”

“Is she discreet?”

“Do you think I would go to her if she wasn’t?”

“If this becomes public knowledge—”

“My ruin would be far greater than yours, Richard. Please remember that.”

The brusqueness in her voice caught his attention and finally, something stirred in his expression. His mouth went a little slack but he failed to say another word. He reached for her hand and their eyes met for the briefest, headiest of moments. 

But then she shook him off and fled his office, not wanting him to see her tears. 

She was too weak to shake him off now. And, God help her, she didn’t want to. Matthew was gone and Richard was here. Richard held her in his arms and she held on as tightly as her fever-assaulted limbs would allow, hearing heavy doors scrape against stone, the prattle of astonished servants, the flurry of activity that followed.

“Do you trust me, Lavinia?” Richard whispered to her. Or maybe that was memory too.

_Do you trust me, Lavinia?_ He’d said those words right before he kissed her the first time, her breath catching on the idea of what he was about to do. She didn’t answer then, she didn’t answer now. She just let him do what he wanted.

What _she_ wanted.

The room was hot then. It was so cold now.

_Cold._

The sensation of cold water hit her fiery skin as she realized that she was being lowered into a tub of water. Richard was there too, stepping into the tub in his suit and shoes, sinking down with her in his arms. He held her and she clung to him, trying to escape the onslaught of cold. Cold, cold, cold. The servants had brought in chopped ice and were slowly adding it to the bath. Her body shivered in the cold.

“Slowly, slowly,” Richard cautioned. “If the water is cooled too quickly, she’ll go into shock.”

_Oh, what more could you do to shock me tonight, my love?_ Lavinia found herself thinking. 

If she was stronger, she might have laughed at herself, at the odd endearment she found herself giving this man who held her. A man she’d hated for so long. 

But a man she loved once too.


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ran longer than I expected because...angst ;)
> 
> So definitely one more to go. <3
> 
> ETA: Another lovely photo set by chryssadirewolf added to this chapter! *heart eyes*

Sometime in the night, her fever broke. 

The snow too, an unlikely storm blown up by April’s last chill, dissipated, giving way to a gentle sunrise, with the eaves dripping and the little song birds calling out their morning melodies in the budding gardens outside.

Sunlight fell on Lavinia in strips through the half-pulled drapes. She was sleeping now in a bed at Haxby. Her breath was even, her restless limbs quiet. The cold bath had brought her raging fever down and, although weak beyond reckoning, she lived.

She _lived_.

Richard could not have guessed how much those words might mean to him only a short while ago. He hadn’t thought…he’d never realized…

That day she told him about the baby, she left his office in a rush. He neglected to go after her, thinking that she would not appreciate the gesture. And he hardly thought it necessary. After all, he’d done his duty. He offered to marry her. It was her choice to refuse. 

_What more would you ask of me, Lavinia?_

The thought stung him now, sharply. There was a callousness to his actions that he hadn’t comprehended at the time. No, that wasn’t true. He knew what he was doing. And somehow, he knew she would refuse him before the words left his mouth. 

His tone had been deliberate. Lavinia wasn’t a stupid girl. She knew what love sounded like. She knew the absence of it too. More than he did, certainly.

For he couldn’t recognize love if it was staring him in the face, with beautiful, wide eyes that spoke a silent plea—begging him to understand all her fears and wants and hopes and dreams, begging him to share in them or save her from them, whichever he could manage. He saw her plea. He chose to ignore it, choosing a cold gesture of duty over even a fleeting moment’s affection.

She went to her cousin’s house for the summer and returned to London in the fall, looking a good deal frailer than she had the year before, with a haunted shadow in her eyes that would grow dimmer as the years went by, lingering at the corner of her expression, hidden to anyone who didn’t know its cause.

Fool that he was, he thought the years would mend it. But she avoided him in town and at parties they both attended. 

She wouldn’t let him touch her, not even to shake his hand when the occasion might call for it. She made appropriate excuses in hushed corners—her father’s unfair debts, the price of her uncle’s scandal, his greed in exploiting both. He didn’t contradict any of it.

But she could have taken his hand. She could have allowed his fingers to brush her hair back from her face once more. Or so he would lament, every once in a while, unwilling to examine the reasons why he might crave her touch, even now. 

_It’s the little things that give us away._

Now he sat at Lavinia’s bedside, his hand lightly stroking the red strands of hair that fell soft against her pillow, the caress so achingly familiar that he wondered how he’d gone without it for so long.

_You know why, Richard._

He remembered when she sent him the message telling him of the stillbirth, written in nearly as cold a hand as _he_ might have managed—clinical, exact, emotionless. He read the message with interest, thinking the news would make her happy as well. The complication had resolved itself, and they were free to move on unencumbered.

It was all for the best. She must see that?

Only years later, he began to guess at the number of tears she shed pressing those words to paper. For his part, he shed no tears over the death of the child, his _only_ child, too busy being a self-made man to have any idea of what he had lost. 

In an effort to show commiseration, empty as it might be, he sent money to pay the doctor afterwards, for the man’s services and for his discretion. Lavinia returned the money with one final note that he likely deserved, but cut him deeper than he might have expected, nonetheless: 

_We will never speak of this again._

He had followed her wishes, until that day in the Downton gardens when they came so dangerously close to giving the words life again. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt the need to warn her, to make her see reason. She refused to acknowledge that Matthew and Mary might share more than the same last name. And he _hated_ how naïve she was being. 

She _knew_ better. She was an intelligent woman and a better than average observer. If she was paying attention, she must know it all. How could she not? The fact that she wouldn’t admit it roused him to anger, in a way that only she could manage.

And so the words they exchanged in the gardens became charged, with a meaning that went far deeper than her father’s debts and her uncle’s scandals. Those relatively harmless subjects they had silently agreed would serve as the basis for the vast schism between them. 

And _nothing_ else.

“How dare you threaten me?” She had seethed the words, upset with herself for allowing this interlude in the first place.

“How dare I? Oh, I assure you, I dare a great deal more than that,” he replied, with a sharp edge to his tone. 

His fingers held her wrist and a slight caress along her thumb spoke volumes. The caress was not made in affection, but rather as a reminder of their history and of the deeper secrets they shared, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

“But you can’t. You wouldn’t,” she said, nearly helplessly. 

For what if he did? 

What if he suddenly abandoned all his senses and brought them both down low just for spite, just to prove Matthew’s faithlessness to her? Could he be so cruel, so unfeeling? He wondered that himself, not sure why he was pressing the matter. He knew she thought him heartless. And maybe he was. He hadn’t examined his own heart in a long, _long_ time. 

But the look in her eyes—that same plea again, asking him to do the right thing. Just once. Heartless or not, _that_ look made him think twice. 

“I didn’t say I would. I was merely reminding you it was within my power.” The fight went out of his words. But he answered her too bluntly, in all his damned honesty, watching her eyes harden again, the soft plea vanishing from her features. 

Rosamund Painswick’s interruption proved timely, as there was nothing left for them to do but stoke the fires of hatred and spite which would continue burning brightly through another few seasons. Through winter and summer and winter again.

And now?

He looked down at Lavinia, the little woman who so wanted an ordinary life. 

_But you’re anything but ordinary._ He thought as he continued to stroke her hair.

If Matthew couldn’t see it, then he was a fool. As much a fool as Richard himself, who had known her longer and should have seen it _far_ sooner.

Well, he saw it now. He saw clearly for the first time in years.

And when Lavinia woke, he would tell her exactly what he saw. What he understood, having been blind the first time around. He was likely too late, and certainly undeserving, but she needed to know.

She needed to know that he regretted it all. Every hour from the moment she rushed out of his office.

_I should have held you when you told me. I should have kissed you when I had the chance. I should have grieved with you until your tears were dry. And I should have begged to marry you, not in duty but in joy, hoping you would overlook my faults on the promise that I would never do you wrong…_

_A promise I didn’t give. A promise I didn’t keep. And may I burn in hell for it._

“If you want to die, Lavinia, I won’t stop you,” he murmured aloud, very quietly, unable to stop himself. His wandering fingers finally left her hair to slip around her pale hand, the one that lay atop the covers. 

She was sleeping. She wouldn’t hear him but still, he felt compelled to confess, to plead with her, to beg her forgiveness, “But if you are giving up because you believe there is no love left for you in this world, it isn’t true. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it sooner. I’m sorry for so many things. And I don’t deserve anything. I won’t ask for anything. But I just need you to know…”

He swallowed hard, a sheen of tears coming to his blue eyes.

“I’ve spent my life building up towards something greater than myself. Everything I’ve done, every step I’ve taken, every decision I’ve made—it was all in pursuit of achieving this…hollow thing,” Richard cast a long glance around them, at the gilded halls of Haxby. 

It was a grand house for a grand master. When he bought it for Mary, he thought he’d reached that pinnacle he’d been striving for. 

He closed his eyes briefly, shaking his head. He’d been a fool. 

“You weren’t part of that plan. That night that you came to beg for your father, all those years ago, I didn’t intend…,” no, he wouldn’t make excuses.

But he tried to explain, as she deserved all his explanations, “There was something in your eyes, Lavinia. When you brought back your uncle’s papers, when you handed them over and then later, when we…were together.” 

He gave a rueful chuckle, but there was no humor in it, just remorse, “I don’t think I could have ever said no to you, not even if I knew what would come afterwards. For you are not ordinary, my dear. You are no nuisance. You are life itself. And I didn’t recognize it when I should have. I was blind and, in my blindness, I couldn’t recognize _you_. And I was…happy…when you wrote to tell me that the child…”

Richard’s voice broke on those words and he couldn’t say the rest, the full loss coming upon him now, mixing with the knowledge that Lavinia still walked so closely to death.

“If you want to die…,” he whispered, barely managing the words. He held her hand, willing her to understand, begging, as he had not begged anyone in as long as he could remember, “Don’t, Lavinia. Please don’t.”

His head was bent, tears coming upon him, flooding his vision. He found himself regretting everything. Nearly his entire life. For what good was any of it? What good was a fortune or titles or land, if he had betrayed the one person who had ever meant anything to him?

The one person who might have loved him back, before he ruined that too.

He could say no more, but remained there, by her side, the knuckles of her sweet fingers pressed to his lips while he wept.


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, friends! But I think I will likely return to this in the future because mmm Lavinia/Richard, who knew? And Sir Richard & Lady Lavinia Carlisle of Haxby Park? Ummm, yes. I'm gonna need this in my life :)
> 
> A couple more gorgeous photo sets by chryssadirewolf have been added to the fic. One in the previous chapter and one here, because it just works so well with the final scene - reading my mind were you? ;) If you like her work, please follow her blog on [Tumblr](https://chryssadirewolf.tumblr.com/). It's filled with similar creations of only the loveliest varieties <3

“Do you think some things are meant to be?” Lavinia wondered, sitting beside him on a sunlit bench in Trafalgar Square. 

Her hands were resting in her lap, with her ankles crossed beneath the bench seat. She was wearing a green day dress, with white stripes and small pearl drop earrings to match. She didn’t remember buying the dress but the earrings were her mother’s. 

Richard was in his weekday suit jacket and waistcoat, with that tie she loved so well, its green fabric matching the darker stripes on her frock almost exactly. Richard’s posture was relaxed, his tall frame leaning back against the bench, smoking a cigar in the open air, one leg sprawled out in front of him, the other bent and grazing her own knee.

The weather was warm for late autumn and the breeze mild. The square was nearly abandoned, almost empty, except for the stray flocks of grey pigeons and white doves that called Trafalgar home. And two small children who played across the open square, near the towering water fountains, attempting to call down those birds with seeds scattered on wet stones.

“Do you mean fate?” Richard replied, before tapping the ash from the end of his cigar and blowing a little smoke into the air above them. He added, somewhat wryly, cutting to the heart of the matter as was his usual manner, “Or are you asking if I think there’s a God?”

“Do you?” Lavinia asked, curious, her eyebrows rising just slightly. She had a guess but she wasn’t sure, knowing that what he might want people to think wasn’t always the same as what he truly felt. 

And Richard had surprised her before. Many times.

“I have my doubts like anyone else, Vinnie,” he admitted to her. “But I’d err on the side that He exists.”

“Why?” she said, her lips curling into a little smile at the nickname. No one had ever used it but him. Not her father, not her school friends. And when did he start calling her “Vinnie”? She couldn’t remember. 

There was a haze in her recollection, making it difficult to remember…_anything_ beyond this moment really. Here, in the square, sitting on this bench with him. The sunlight on their faces, the children’s animated chatter in the background. How long had they been here? Where were they going? Where had they come from?

She had no idea.

And yet, the uncertainty didn’t disturb her in the least. She felt calm and peaceful, as if every worry that she’d ever had, every mistake, every misstep, every regret—none of it mattered. She needed nothing more than to sit beside him, like this, with the late afternoon sunlight washing over them and the eastern breeze sweeping against the old stones. And to talk quietly, watching those two children try their best to make friends with the cooing pigeons and skittish doves in the square.

“Because I like the idea of eternal forgiveness,” he answered her question honestly, reaching over to claim one of the hands in her lap. She didn’t mind. She welcomed his touch, interlacing her fingers with his smoothly. With a warm caress, she kept his hand nestled between both her own, keeping it. 

He continued, meeting her gaze briefly before looking out towards the children once more, “And the notion that someone cares about us and wants us to love and be loved, no matter what we’ve done, no matter what trials and tribulations we’ll face in the future. There’s comfort in that.”

“You’re rather poetic today,” she mused, her grin widening.

“Am I?” He squeezed her hand, affectionately. “Well, it’s a lovely day. With the sun shining on my face and a beautiful woman sitting beside me, who wears a smile that could sway the bitter heart of the blackest soul to penance. So what more could I ask for?”

She leaned over and kissed the side of his mouth, not having an answer for him. No more questions either, though those two children looked like they might have one or two, running back from the water fountains with boundless energy.

The boy had Lavinia’s red hair, the girl had Richard’s eyes. And both of them ran up to the bench while calling out, “Mama! Papa!”

“What is it now?” Richard gave his best sigh, playing the long-suffering father, but it was all put on. He winked at Lavinia as he leaned forward, slipping his hand from hers only after another slight press. He cast the stub of his cigar aside and his elbows came to rest on his knees, with his hands outstretched to receive whatever the two children were bringing to him.

It was a dove with a ruined wing, its white feathers mud-smeared from being dragged along damp stones.

“Will you fix it, Papa?” Catherine, the youngest, pleaded softly, bringing her little hands to rest on her father’s forearm, her little head bent and peering over the dove as he examined the extent of the bird’s injuries.

Reggie, the oldest, said nothing, knowing that it was likely beyond their father’s healing powers. But his features betrayed the hope that the animal might be saved, nonetheless, his tender expression so like Richard whenever Richard was sad or broken-hearted. It nearly broke Lavinia’s heart to see her son so distraught, unable to hide his true emotions behind that stoic frown. At least not from her. She tugged the little boy closer, bringing her arm to rest around his shoulders as they all watched Richard gently fuss with the bird’s injured wing.

“I don’t know that we can, lass,” Richard told Catherine, who waited for her father’s diagnosis with baited breath. Honesty in all things. Richard would never lie to his children, no matter how unpleasant the truth. And yet, there was hope there too, as he gave her a little smile, encouraging her to be brave. He promised, “But we can certainly try.”

With her family huddled around that dove, Lavinia’s heart felt so full it might burst. 

And the golden sunlight, with its shimmering brilliance, filled her with a sense of warmth and love and calmness of spirit, even as the brightness seemed to grow, far beyond any natural reckoning, swallowing them all in a sudden, incandescent glow of light. 

_I’m dreaming. This is a dream…_

She only realized it as her eyes blinked open, the rest fading away. Trafalgar Square, the fountains, the stone arches, the children’s faces, the sunlight on the white wing of that dove—all vanishing like vapor off a steaming cup, leaving behind the bedroom at Haxby, its patterned walls of lavender and white, the dripping eaves, the sweet melodies of songbirds somewhere outside in the gardens.

And the feel of Richard’s hand holding her own. 

That part of the dream was true enough, she realized, as her eyes opened fully and she saw Richard in a chair beside her bedside, his head bent, his shoulders slumped, his body racked with quiet sobs that she knew were shed for her sake.

_Oh, Richard, I’m tired of weeping. I would have us both smile again. Please…_

He kept one of her hands so close, his tears falling on her fingers. Slowly, she slipped her other hand from beneath the blankets. It took some effort as she was weak, so weak, and every action felt like she was Atlas rolling his boulder up a hill. It was to be expected. She had walked close to death the night before and would not be fully recovered for weeks.

Still, she _would_ recover. 

At that moment, she knew she would live. Her mind was made up. Her heart too. And when she thought on it, she found her heart was not the worn-out, broken thing she thought it was. The fever had tricked her into thinking her heart was empty and shredded beyond mending. But that sweet dream, so unlike the monstrous ones that had plagued her throughout the night, had filled it to the brim. The peace it brought lingered even after the images faded away. She had a feeling it would linger for some time, and mend her body and soul well enough that they might stay together after all.

As for what would happen after that, she didn’t know. The future was uncertain, as much as the past was unchangeable. She could not go back. _They_ could not go back. But the future? Well, anything could happen in the future. And even though she dared not believe it, Richard’s actions the previous night and his vigil here beside her _meant_ something…

She considered. Perhaps her dream was nonsense. Perhaps they were doomed to fail a second time.

_But we can certainly try…_she thought, echoing the steady voice in her dream. _His_ voice. 

Lavinia’s fingers stirred beneath his grip, reaching, brushing over his skin. Her other hand came to rest on the side of his dear, tortured face, her thumb moving over the damp trail of tears she found against his cheek, wiping them away.

At her unexpected touch, Richard looked up, his eyes fearful and torn up by misery, but soon showing stark relief. He was soothed by the sight of her—awake, calm, restful. The look in his blue eyes was piercing, the love written there both undeniable and unreserved. 

He’d never looked at her like that before. Never. 

And she found her breath catching on the depth of those feelings that she recognized in him and recognized in herself as well, springing up from the bones of what they had once shared like flower buds pushing up through the mulched remains of a cold, hard winter. He kissed her knuckles soundly, before leaning up to kiss her forehead too, his lips brushing over her brow, finally and blessedly, cool to his touch.

She closed her eyes on that soft kiss, accepting it. _Wanting_ it. Wanting him near. Despite all those years of pushing him away and trying to forget.

She would be ready to remember soon.

“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” he whispered, unsure and unwilling to assume anything, despite the soft looks that were passing between them. 

Despite the gentle hand that had returned to stroke her hair.  
He promised, “I’ll arrange for nurses to watch over you and you can be taken back to your father’s house as soon as you’re well enough to travel…”

“No, Richard,” she said, keeping his other hand close, caught between both of hers just like in her dream. But this was real, _he_ was real, pulsing with a warmth that wouldn’t fade.

“I want you to stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on the Good Crackship Lavinia/Richard ;) *salutes*
> 
> Much thanks to QueenLovett86 for the conversation that spurred this fic on in the first place and for grabbing a paddle in this rarepair canoe way back when :) Thanks (again and again) to chryssadirewolf for the beautiful artworks which I'll _never_ be over. Your sense of style and aesthetic is unparalleled <3 
> 
> And MANY THANKS to duchessofthemoonbase, rileypotter (*extra hugs for extra comments*), Vicky, teadreams, clarasimone, TheEclecticEccentric, ThroughtheBlue and anyone else who read/faved/enjoyed this fic. I honestly didn't expect this to get _any_ traffic at all (because it's years too late and the rarest of pairs) but if I've brought a few more converts onto this little ship, my job here is done <3 <3 <3
> 
> It's been a pleasure, m'dears. Xo


End file.
